Healing and Hope

Friday, March 13, 2015

If you go day after day, week after week, not getting enough
sleep, the toll it will take on you can be greater than you realize. Lack of
sleep can clog up your ability to think clearly, and can make you feel more raw
and sensitive emotionally. The effects tend to be cumulative, so that the
longer you've been having trouble getting enough rest, the greater the impact
on your life may be. Some people report starting to have depression,
hopelessness, or even a sense that they are losing their minds. You can start
to just plain feel shaky, physically and mentally.

So if you
feel as though you're falling apart, one possibility is that you just need to
sleep.

Being
involved in a destructive relationship can make sleep hard to come by. The
stress and emotional pain of being mistreated can keep you awake. Your worries
about what your partner will do next can do the same. Maybe sometimes -- or often
-- he doesn't let you sleep,
either to punish you about something he's angry about or as a way to force you
to have sex with him. When a man causes sleep deprivation in his partner, he is
actually committing one of the more serious forms of physical abuse -- yes,
sleep deprivation is a form of physical
abuse --
but the depth of damage he can do in these ways is often not
recognized.

If you have
young children, that adds a lot of additional challenges to getting sleep,
especially if your partner isn't carrying his weight about sharing the times of
getting out of bed to attend to a child in need.

Keep some
notes about how much sleep you get, and track your rest patterns over a period
of weeks. Putting down on paper what is going on can help you to assess whether
lack of sleep is actually one of the major contributors to emotional and
physical struggles you are having.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)

Monday, January 12, 2015

The title of today’s second post may seem
odd to you. If you have children, you’re probably thinking, “Of course I’m
their mother. What’s up with that?”

In the rush of daily responsibilities
and challenges—especially when you are in a relationship with someone whose
behavior is a huge problem some days—it’s possible to forget just how important
you are to your children.

Biology is not the issue here; in fact, some of you
are raising children you didn’t give birth to. Motherhood is about so much more
than giving birth or breastfeeding, as powerful and profound as those are. As
your children’s mother, you are their protector, their moral compass and
teacher, their key source of love and affection and nurturing, their refuge,
their source of faith.

You might ask, “Isn’t their father supposed to be
these things too?” Yes, although even the best father can’t be exactly what a
mother is. But if your partner is struggling with addiction, is deeply selfish,
or is abusive to you, he can’t even begin to be what the children need him to
be. So your role as a mother grows even bigger.

The bitter irony here is that many destructive men
attack a woman’s sense of her value as a mother. Your partner may say that he
knows better than you do what the right way is to raise children, . He may even
try to convince you that there is something toxic about you that your children
are in danger of catching, and use that as an excuse to take away your
parenting decisions and rights.

So when you say to yourself, “I am the children’s
mother,” you are making a profound statement that is not about being their
biological or legal parent. You are stating how absolutely critical your role is in who they are and who they will become, and how
inalienable your right is to guide them and love them. Your children are
looking to you.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)

Friday, December 5, 2014

When people
picture an abusive or controlling man, they imagine him yelling, threatening,
or attacking with his fists. These images do capture one aspect of the
experience of a woman who has a destructive partner, but at the same time they
leave so much out.

They particularly miss one of the most insidious forms of
relationship poison, which is when the man relentlessly – but not necessarily
loudly -- badgers, criticizes, pressures, and guilt-trips the woman until she
gives in. This kind of vise-grip approach, where he just keeps tightening up
the pressure until she can’t take it, is especially common regarding sex, but
it comes about other issues as well.

Why is this
pressure so toxic? One of the key reasons is that the woman comes out blaming
herself. Over and over again, women say to me, “Well, I let him get away with
it,” or, “I was stupid to put up with it.” Her partner has made her feel that
she made a voluntary choice, so she feels responsible for causing her own harm
to herself.

But the decision
wasn’t voluntary at all. You are not making a free choice if it follows an
unending barrage of verbal pushing. And this is even more true when that
pushing includes insults and guilt-tripping. This style of man is sending the
message that you are bad and that you
are inferior if you don’t give in to his demands.

And there
usually is a threat, even if he isn’t openly saying that he is going to hurt
you. He is often sending the message that he is going to be cold or mean to you
for days to come if he doesn’t get his way – because that’s what he’s done in
the past when you haven’t given in. Or he may get it across that he is going to
cheat on you if don’t do what he is telling you to do. Threats don’t have to be
overt to be powerful.

You are not
a voluntary participant when you have been bullied into doing things that you
didn’t believe you should have to do. And when a man bullies you into sexual
contact that you didn’t want, or into a specific sexual act that you didn’t
want, that’s sexual assault not lovemaking.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)

Sunday, April 13, 2014

When a man
has some unhealthy relationship patterns to begin with, the last thing he needs
is to discover philosophies that actually back up the destructive aspects of
how he thinks. Take a guy who is somewhat selfish and disrespectful to begin
with, then add in a big dose of really negative influences, and you have a
recipe for disaster. And the sad reality is that there are websites, books, and
even organizations out there that encourage men to be at their worst rather
than at their best when it comes to relating to women.

Some of
these groups come under the heading of what is known as “Men’s Rights” or
“Father’s Rights” groups. Their writings spread the message that women are
trying to control or humiliate men, or are mostly focused on taking men’s
money. They also tend to promote the idea that women who want to keep primary
custody of their children after divorce are evil. The irony is that we live in
a country that has refused to pass an amendment to the constitution to
guarantee equal rights for women; yet some men are still out there claiming
that women have too many rights and
that men don’t have enough.

Other
groups don’t use the language of “rights”, but promote abusive thinking by
talking about the “natural” roles of men and women. These groups teach, for
example, that men are biologically programmed to be the ones making the key
decisions, and that women are just naturally the followers of men’s leadership.
These philosophies sometimes teach that men and women are just too different to
have really close relationships.

Human
personalities and preference are obviously not determined by biology. There are
women who love to watch football and men who would much rather be dancing. There
are women who hold in all their feelings and men who burst into tears freely.
No one has the right to tell anyone what they “naturally” are or must be; one
of the greatest joys of human life is having the freedom to decide for
ourselves what our identities and styles will be.

If you see
your partner coming under the influence of a philosophy that is harming your
relationship, take some steps to research it. Look underneath the surface of
what he is telling you about his new belief system. If he starts to attend
workshops or read books that seem to be worsening rather than improving how he
treats you, try to use the Internet to make contact with other women who have
been hurt by these philosophies. The clearer you can be about what he is
getting into, the more you’ll be prepared to defend yourself.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Has your partner ever said to you, “You’re the
controlling one! You are always trying to control me! You’re a controlling bitch!”

These accusations can create confusion for the woman. So
let’s clarify a few points.

It is notcontrol when you:

Demand
that someone treat you properly, insisting that your rights be respected
(including demanding that you be spoken to with respect)

Challenge
someone about the work they are creating for you (such as by leaving
messes around the house)

Press
someone to meet responsibilities that they aren’t meeting (and if you have
to keep asking them over and over again, that doesn’t make you
controlling, it makes them irresponsible)

Challenge
someone about behaviors of theirs that have large implications for the
couple (and for the family if you have children), such as abusing alcohol,
gambling, ignoring the children, or being mean to the children

Call
the police because someone is hurting you or threatening to hurt you

Itis control when you:

Ridicule
someone, make them feel stupid, or call them demeaning names, especially
when you are doing so in order to force them do something or to silence
them

Physically
or sexually intimidate someone

Get
revenge on someone for not doing what you told them to do or for standing
up for their own opinions

Impose
double standards (make different rules for yourself than for the other
person)

Pressure
or manipulate someone into sexual contact that they don’t want

I’m willing to
bet that when he calls you controlling, he is referring to things you do from
the first list, and that when you call him controlling, you’re referring to
things he does from the second list. He's the one getting it all backwards.

Another useful, though tricky, concept:It’s control when you are trying to take
someone’s rights away, and it’s self-defense when you are trying to keep
someone else from taking your rights away. (The reason this gets tricky is
because the controlling man will often say that you are trying to take his rights away, because he thinks he
has the right to abuse you.)

And a last concept:The abusive man will call you “controlling” for resisting his control.
Noticing when this is happening will be a huge help to you.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Verbal
abuse is not sexy. Intimidation is not sexy. Public humiliation is not sexy.
Ruining the day is not sexy. So why does he think that a short period of time –
say a couple of hours -- after he’s been treating you terribly could somehow be
a good time for sex? He really thinks that this is when you are going to be in
the mood?

Not
exactly. The problem, as is so often true with abusive men, is that he isn’t
thinking about you at all; he’s thinking only about himself. He wants sex to
reassure himself that he hasn’t driven you away, and that he still has access
to your body. He thinks that if he can get you to have sex, that also means he
has erased from history the destructive acts he did earlier. And he wants to
have sex because in some twisted way his ugly behavior made him feel close,
even though it had the opposite effect on you.

And because
of the ways he’s been tearing you down, it gets hard for you to say no to sex
that you don’t want; you can end up feeling like giving him what he wants is
the only way to settle him down so that he doesn’t launch into more abuse, or
even violence.

He is the
one whose reactions are unhealthy, not yours. The feelings you are going
through are completely natural for a woman who has been demeaned and bullied.
When he has sex with you following one of his incidents, that is a form of
sexual abuse, even if you don’t – or can’t – fight him on it. Keep reminding
yourself that the sickness is in him, not in you. Sex after abuse is just more abuse.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

NOTE: This post is about some of the internal dynamics of the national movement fighting for the custody rights of abused women (also referred to as "protective mothers," because they are in the position of needing to protect their children from the other parent, but family courts are not permitting them to do so). If this issue doesn't interest or affect you, or if you get triggered by news about infighting, I encourage you to skip this post. But for those of you who are involved in the custody issue, it's important to know about the attacks on activists that are happening.

For over a decade I have been
one of the leaders in the international effort to secure full human rights for
protective mothers and their children. There is no cause that remains as close
to my heart day in and day out.

I am writing in response to the ongoing controversy on
the web regarding the Protective Mothers Alliance (PMA), a grassroots advocacy
organization that I helped to co-found and that is directed by Janice Levinson.
I have been following the claims that have been made about PMA and about Janice;
specifically, I have had the opportunity
to review communications that have been shared between Janice and other
individuals, and to see some of the extremely negative postings that have been
made. In my opinion, the attacks that have been made on Janice and on PMA have
to be called out for what they are: vicious, dishonest, threatening, and
dehumanizing written assaults on a committed advocate and survivor, one who has
worked tirelessly for the interests and rights of protective mothers and their
children.

There are a number of sources of these attacks, but they
come overwhelmingly from Claudine Dombrowski and the American Mothers Political
Party (AMPP). I am not relying on Janice's word in forming this conclusion; I
have looked at many postings by Claudine and AMPP, and they are cruel,
irresponsible, and outrageous. And they don't stop; in fact, they're getting
worse over time.

Moreover, Claudine and AMPP have begun to attack a
significant number of other protective mothers and their allies as well, with
similar viciousness. The predictable effect of the movement's reluctance to
denounce this behavior is that it is growing and spreading.

To make sure that there is no doubt or confusion, I want
to state that I give my wholehearted support to PMA and Janice Levinson. PMA
has been an important and exciting development in the custody rights movement,
and Janice Levinson's work in organizing protective mothers has been excellent.
I have found her to be a person of the highest integrity and commitment,
combined with a deep commitment to treating participants with fairness and
respect. Although she has been accused of various things, I cannot find a shred
of truth to any of these accusations, and none of the accusations come from any
source that I find in any way credible.

The accusations that have been made about PMA have been
insulting and derisive in their tone, and have involved outright fabrications
about the organization and how it works, and about Janice herself. There have
also been accusations that Janice's work is not actually associated with me,
which is as bizarre as the other attacks. The attackers have used gutter
language, have put up photos of Janice, and have written what can only be
interpreted as threats against her. These behaviors serve to further discredit
those who are making claims about PMA. These behaviors appear to come from just
two or three disgruntled individuals who were angry about the appropriate
requirements that the PMA structure involves, and who chose to retaliate in
harmful and divisive ways.

Now for the most important
part of this letter:

Claudine Dombrowski and AMPP are doing severe damage to
the custody rights movement. Whatever their intentions may be, the actual
effects of their actions is only to strengthen the position of the abusers. I
have known of a number of individuals who have dropped out of the movement
and/or who have declared that they won't come to the BMCC anymore because they
can't stand the infighting and accusations, which are almost all traceable to
the same few sources. I therefore have decided today -- after viewing the
latest round of unbelievable psychological assaults on Janice (see, for example,
janicelevinson.blogspot.com, a blog that was created just to attack and
humiliate Janice) --that I am taking
the following stands:

1) I will not participate in any event or
campaign that Claudine Dombrowski or AMPP are officially connected to.

2) I will not attend any event where Claudine and
AMPP are present unless the organizers of the event have done everything in
their power to keep them from attending.

3) I won't work on any projects or collaborate
with anyone who has worked with Claudine or AMPP in the past unless they now
publicly and visibly denounce her actions.

I have waited some four years to take these steps, but
now I regret that I waited so long. We cannot fight against the power and
actions of abusers, and of the courts that enable them, while we remain silent
and acquiescent in the face of severely abusive of treatment of our own allies.

Whatever divisiveness may result from drawing a line that
places Claudine Dombrowski and AMPP outside of the custody rights movements
will be far less than the
divisiveness and other damage that are resulting from our failure to draw that
line. So the movement needs us to take this stand.

But there is an even more important
reason to take this stand, which is that it's the right thing to do.

I ask that you not stand by quietly
and allow Janice to be dragged through the mud. Please look at the attacks that
have been made on her (and at the lack of any similar behavior coming from her). And then please inform
everyone in your networks that you are denouncing the behavior of Claudine and
the AMPP and that you do not intend to have them be part of the custody rights
/ protective mothers movement.

You can also help by complaining to Google about the hate-oriented website created against Janice, by going to: